Perhaps, it's unclear to me what that would look like though. How would Activision bill Microsoft for N users playing M games? I think they would want $N*M*MSRP (perhaps * <small-bulk-discount>) for that. Which probably isn't viable for Microsoft to bootstrap their platform. Indeed, would Activision even cut a deal here? In some sense Microsoft's Game Pass is a direct competitor to them selling individual game SKUs, so why would they strengthen Microsoft's strategic position with a licensing deal?

Whereas if Microsoft has a large library of first-party titles, they can take a loss on unit sales to grow the platform. At some point if they are successful they hope to get to a size where other AAA third-party publishers like Activision are willing to sign a licensing deal like "Microsoft agrees to pay $Xm / year for unlimited streaming of the CoD franchise".

But it's not obvious to me that there's a viable path to getting Activision content on their streaming platform. (It's not available on GeForce Now, for example). Anyway, on this licensing point I'm not an expert, so I'm interested in others' thoughts here. Particularly what the current licenses for existing GeForce Now / Game Pass games look like.